The determination of service performance for a postal agency is an important aspect of refining the reputation and value of delivery services, as well as identifying and troubleshooting problems within the delivery logistic. Postal services have traditionally measured their service performance externally by means of static delivery points to which the postal service delivers test letters that have been intentionally seeded into the mail stream at prescribed locations and times. Testing agents at the fixed points to which the test letters are delivered record time of delivery information, and data from all the agents is regularly aggregated as the basis for performance reports.
These systems tend to be very expensive, which leads to a narrow sampling methodology. Over time, the Sectional Center Facility (SCF) within which data collection agents operate become known which makes the system produce data which is not representative of the rest of the system. In the ideal system, postal workers would not know in advance where measurement is taking place.
With the advent of computer-controlled, dynamic sortation, unique “license plate” bar codes used in postal systems, and handheld scanning computers used by postal delivery personnel, it is possible to design a system through which a broader range of precise, representative performance can be measured. Such a system would be not only more accurate and informative than the traditional system, but it is also less expensive to operate.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,079,981 describes a method of analyzing the operation of a delivery system. The method includes: determining a seeding plan; placing a seed piece into the delivery system; tracking the seed piece through the delivery system to generate tracking data; storing the tracking data in a central repository; and analyzing the tracking data to determine one or more faults. The faults referred to are sortation faults generated by the mail sorting facility.